A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter R

rive

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Torn or split apart violently; ripped asunder with force; the past participle of "rive," describing something forcibly divided or rent into pieces.

Detailed Definition
“Riven” describes forceful division, as in “riven oak” or “riven heart.” It appears in Romantic and Gothic poetry to depict natural cataclysm or emotional fracture. Its harsh consonants mirror its meaning, and its archaic form intensifies imagery of rupture. Though “torn” is more common, “riven” in verse conveys clean, dramatic separation with mythic or elemental force.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The lightning rived the sacred tree,” in a mythic scene; In Milton: “The earth shall rive and chaos come again”; “His heart was riven by doubt and desire”; “The axe rived oak from oak”; “The secret rived their friendship asunder”; Rive not truth with careless words.

The tree was riven by lightning's strike (split, torn apart); His heart was riven with grief and pain (torn, split); The mountains were riven by ancient quakes (split, cleft); Riven by doubt, he could not choose (torn apart, divided); The fabric was riven from hem to collar (torn, ripped); Her soul was riven by conflicting loves (split, torn)
Additional Notes
“Rive” is nearly synonymous with “rend” but often implies splitting along natural lines (e.g., wood or rock); in epic or geological metaphors, it suggests elemental force—lightning “riving” oaks—linking divine power to physical destruction.

Riven is the past participle of "rive" (to split or tear violently), suggesting forceful, often violent division. "Riven by lightning" describes trees split by strikes. Metaphorically, "riven by grief" or "riven by conflict" describes emotional or social tearing apart. Students should recognize riven's emphasis on violence and force—not gentle separation but wrenching apart. In poetry, riven appears in sublime or catastrophic contexts: storms, battles, catastrophes. Milton uses rive/riven for cosmic events. The term suggests irreparable damage rather than clean division. Compare "cleft" (split, possibly deliberately) versus "riven" (torn violently). Tolkien uses "riven" for dramatic effect in fantasy literature. Understanding riven's connotations helps interpret intensity and violence in descriptions. Modern usage preserves riven mainly in poetic or dramatic contexts. The harsh consonants reinforce the semantic violence.
Also Known As
tear split rend riven rended torn
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